Recapping the past seven months of the state’s ongoing legislative work to a gathering of party faithful Saturday morning, Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Trey Martinez Fischer said many of Democrats’ biggest victories aren’t yet in the bag.
Martinez Fischer counts among the session’s top achievements: Providing a cost of living adjustment for retired teachers, increasing the homestead exemption for the state’s portion of property tax bills and creating a $3 billion endowment fund for Texas State University, the University of Houston, the University of North Texas and Texas Tech University.
All three ideas will go before voters this November, along with 11 other proposed amendments to the state Constitution.
“Every good idea we told you we’re going to do … you have to vote for it,” Martinez Fischer told local Democratic groups gathered at the VIA Metro Center on San Pedro Avenue.
Retired teachers have already been organizing in support of the cost of living adjustment. If approved, school retirees would receive monthly pension increases for the first time in two decades, starting in January 2024.
Martinez Fischer said delaying such changes was shameful, considering lawmakers began the session with a record $32.7 billion surplus. But the state Constitution caps how much they can spend based on the rate of economic growth unless a majority of lawmakers agree to break it.
Rather than asking their members to do that, Martinez Fischer said Republican leaders will leave it up to voters to decide whether to spend money above and beyond the state cap — something Texas voters have generally been willing to do.
“Of the issues that we can count as wins, Republicans weren’t willing to come together with Democrats and just vote them into our budget,” Martinez Fischer said. “We ought to be just taking these votes, passing them and then putting them into effect as soon as possible.”
Martinez Fischer has represented Texas’ 116th District in 11 state legislative sessions, but this is his first year serving as Democratic Caucus chair.
Other top Democratic priorities still hang in the balance as bargaining chips to bring lawmakers on board with Republicans’ own ideas.
The regular session ended May 29, but Gov. Greg Abbott has already called lawmakers back for special sessions to address property taxes and border security.
In an interview after Saturday’s event, Martinez Fischer lamented the fact that lawmakers hadn’t been able to use the budget surplus to address issues both parties have long wanted to fix.
For example, he said, teacher pay raises haven’t been approved, while Abbott continues to push for a school voucher plan that Democrats and some Republicans oppose.
“Both the good and bad of this session was that we had all the resources in the world to make a difference, and in so many areas we fell way short. That’s a disappointment,” Martinez Fischer said.
“So many issues have risen to the point of critical mass, where we need all hands on deck to fix the policy,” he added. “Every session it’s been, ‘Great idea. We just don’t have the money.’ This session, we had plenty of money. We just didn’t have a lot of bipartisan will.”
Impeachment trial
Martinez Fischer responded to questions from the audience about reports that two San Antonio state senators, Roland Gutierrez and José Menéndez, might not be able to vote on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s fate during his upcoming impeachment trial because they’ve spoken ill of Paxton.
Paxton faces accusations of varying types of misconduct, including abuse of power and using his position to help a political donor. The House voted 121-23 to impeach him in May, and he’s expected to begin trial in September in the Senate, which will determine whether to permanently remove him from office.
Martinez Fischer said he didn’t believe the senators should be excluded from the trial vote but added that he was among a number of lawmakers who received emails from Lt. Gov Dan Patrick’s office this week advising them of a gag order barring them from talking about the impeachment trial.
Martinez Fischer believes the move came in response to a recent interview Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) gave about the matter.
“I didn’t think that was possible either,” Martinez Fischer said of the gag order. “But we got a memo, and now we have guidance that says, ‘Everybody be cool until we look at this with some lawyers and we’ll give you some guidance from the House as to how you navigate this.”
Political landscape
Part of Martinez Fischer’s job as caucus chair entails recruiting and raising money for House Democratic candidates. Thanks to redistricting after the 2020 census, there are few politically competitive districts left for either party to target.
Republicans control the Texas House with an 86-64 majority.
Martinez Fischer said Saturday that Democrats’ best hopes could come from a redistricting case currently being argued in a federal court in El Paso.
“My sense and expectation is there’ll be a number of arguments saying that the districts should be redrawn to be in conformance with a recent Supreme Court opinion,” Martinez Fischer said.
If the districts must be redrawn, he said a federal court will decide whether to impose a new map temporarily or defer to the Legislature to reconvene and remedy the problem.
